Activity: Last 10 WeeksIs it possible for women to initiate a relationship
…while maintaining an impression of desirability? I discussed this subject with Mark a few months ago in an attempt to come up with a believable story. He suggested that the heroine be young (ignorant of “the rules”) and bold. Can such a person still be feminine, whatever that means?
Perhaps through a change in demeanor as the relationship progresses?
I was poking around the Web for a scientific perspective when I came across a paper entitled Self-promotion as a risk factor for women: The costs and benefits of counterstereotypical impression management. You can’t get closer than that! The paper was published in 1998, and has since garnered 56 citations which I will need to sift through. I shall be grateful to anybody who tells me which ones are worth reading.
Note to self for another entry: What qualities do males and females look for in a mate?
on April 26th, 2006 at 11:25 Quote
A tangentially-related NYT article, about who makes the decisions in a relationship.
on April 29th, 2006 at 09:40 Quote
Hmmm, the paper (at least the Google cache of it) was interesting, but it seems to deal more with the public image of women and prescribed gender roles than with relationships.
I believe gender roles have more to do with publicity than private relationships. One plays roles mostly when there is an audience. Private relationships would probably be best described by game theory rather than role-playing models.
Just my thoughts. From my experience: I had five persons of the opposite sex trying to initiate a relationship with me, of which two ended up successful (but then we broke up anyway
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on April 29th, 2006 at 12:52 Quote
Now I’m miffed; that paper was online just one week ago! I am going to use DOI references from now on. For now, here is another related paper by the same author: Reactions to Counterstereotypic Behavior: The Role of Backlash in Cultural Stereotype Maintenance
You are right about game theory, and I touched on the related subject of deception in another entry. I will see what I can dig up about the application of game theory to relationships. Unfortunately, most game theoretic papers study business relationships, and I am more interested in the other sort. For starters, there are The Gamesmanship of Sex: A Model Based on African American Adolescent Accounts, and Mating strategies as game theory: Changing rules?
Finally, three papers about gender roles: Who’s in Charge? Effects of Situational Roles on Automatic Gender Bias, What Women and Men Should Be, Shouldn’t Be, Are Allowed to Be, and Don’t Have to Be: The Contents of Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes, and Sexual Submissiveness in Women: Costs for Sexual Autonomy and Arousal
P.S. Has anybody else noticed social scientists have a tendency to use really long titles?
on April 29th, 2006 at 14:24 Quote
Rejoice, for I have found another copy of the paper, and will mirror it until the proper link is back up.
on January 22nd, 2008 at 22:53 Quote
This is such a great question to begin with. I surveyed several men to see if they wanted to be the one to initiate a meeting with a woman and to be the aggressive one. The conclusion is that most men want to be the one who makes the initial contact. However, most women today are frustrated that men don’t take the initiative anymore. It’s a catch 22.